Everglades Escape

by Kathleen Tailer

  “When the wind picked up, we knew we needed to pack it in,” Geri added. “We lost the boat and all our supplies a few hours ago, and have been walking for what seems like hours. Finally, David saw this building, and we were hoping we could stay here until the storm passes.”

  “This is an old ranger station that I think they only use for a few months during the busy season,” Theo told him. “The good news is, it has power, at least for now. You’re welcome to share it with us, but we do need some help with a few things before everyone gets settled.”

  David tried to stand to help, and Geri did, too, but they were both weak from exertion.

  “Tell you what...” Whitney said quickly. “You’d help us out more if you could keep your kids in here while we move a few things around in the other room. I’m a US Marshal, and we had an incident in here not too long ago. Part of that room is a crime scene, so we need everyone to stay away from it until we can get some help. We don’t want to lose whatever evidence might be in there, but we also don’t want to scare your kids. There’s something in there that they really shouldn’t see.”

  David and Geri both seemed surprised, but they obviously didn’t feel threatened by Theo or Whitney because they nodded and sat back against the wall, cradling their children. Whitney handed Melissa over to her mother, and although the girl protested a bit, she went willingly.

  “We’ll be back soon. Please just wait in here for a few minutes,” Theo added. They waved at the family, then closed the door behind them as they went to do something about Shorty’s body.

  “We can’t move it,” Whitney whispered, hoping that if she kept her voice low enough, she wouldn’t scare the children. “That would destroy the crime scene. But we can hide it.” She motioned to two of the desks. “Let’s turn these on their sides and block off the area so they can’t get around the counter.”

  “Good idea,” he agreed.

  They cleared off everything from two of the desks and stacked the papers and other items neatly on the floor in the storage room. Then they lifted the first desk and moved it to where they wanted it, then flipped it over on its side. The second desk was a bit heavier, but they did the same, and managed to do a good job of concealing the body without touching it.

  “Hang on a second,” Theo told her. “I’ve got an idea of my own.” He went into the storage closet and returned a few minutes later with four of the park shirts he’d found when they had been searching the storage room when they had been locked in. “Can we cover him up with these, just in case the kids happen to get too close to the desks?”

  “Good thinking,” Whitney agreed. While he took care of that part of the project, she found a roll of masking tape in the storage room, and put a strip of tape on the floor from one wall to the other.

  Theo finished covering the body then joined Whitney. “What are you doing?”

  She finished the job and stood. “I figured we tell them that nobody is allowed to cross this line. That way, there will be a lot less chance of anyone being traumatized by seeing the blood or the body.”

  “We still might have to explain to David and Geri what’s going on, even though we don’t want to bring them into the middle of our problems.”

  “Agreed,” she answered, “but I don’t want to discuss it in front of the kids. We’ll have to wait for the right moment.”

  Theo lightly touched her shoulder. “Are you doing okay? You seemed pretty upset about the family’s arrival.”

  She looked up and met his eyes. “Is that your second question?” she said with a sigh, referring back to their earlier game.

  He smiled, but it was a sweet smile, filled with reassurance. “Only if you want to talk about it. I don’t want to pressure you.”

  She took a deep breath. Theo had managed to tell her about the deaths of his wife and daughter, even though she knew it had been extremely difficult for him. Could she share the doctor’s news? She looked deep into his sapphire-blue eyes and knew instinctively that she could trust him. “I got some bad news right before I came to the Keys on my vacation. In fact, the news is why I left Tallahassee in the first place. I just needed to get away.” She choked on a sob, but took a moment to pull herself together.

  Theo placed his hand on her back and rubbed it gently, giving her encouragement just by his simple touch. He said nothing, just waited patiently for her to continue whenever she was ready.

  She took another deep breath and swallowed hard. “I’ve always wanted to get married some day and have a family,” she said softly, “but I was bleeding a lot, and no one seemed to know why. Then I went to a specialist and she found that I have uterine fibroids.”

  “Ah,” Theo intoned. “I’m so sorry. Were you in a lot of pain?”

  Whitney closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her strength. “No, they are annoying, but not painful. They did a lot of tests, and found the tumors both inside and outside my uterus. Because of where they are located and the size of the tumors, they didn’t want to remove them surgically. As a result, I’m now infertile. I’ll never be able to have a baby.”

  “That must have been devastating news to hear. Did your doctor explain that those tumors aren’t life-threatening to you? If not, you should know that they almost never grow into cancerous tumors. That’s a good thing.”

  “That’s the only good thing about them,” Whitney said bitterly. “Apparently they can be caused by genetics, so the doctors think most likely I inherited the genes from my family.”

  “That’s true,” Theo agreed. “But sometimes women can get pregnant even with the fibroids. Have you gotten a second opinion?”

  “Not yet,” Whitney stated flatly. “I was so devastated by the test results that I just had to have a change in scenery.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’m not sure it would do any good anyway. According to my doctor, some women can get pregnant anyway, but I probably can’t because of where they are located and their size.”

  “You need a second opinion,” Theo reiterated. “But even if the results are confirmed, you can still lead a long and healthy life with the fibroids. They won’t shorten your life span. If they start causing you pain, you can usually have at least some of them surgically removed so you can be more comfortable.”

  “I don’t care about that,” Whitney said as she wiped her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to cry in front of him, but she hadn’t been able to stop it once the tears had come. “I just really wanted to be a mom, and now I know I never will be. The news overwhelmed me, and made me question my entire existence.”

  “There are other ways to be a mom,” Theo murmured. He suddenly moved closer and wrapped his arms around her, giving her the support and strength she suddenly needed so desperately. She leaned into his embrace. “You can adopt, or be a foster parent.”

  “Yes, I can do those things—” she sniffled “—but no one will ever want to marry me if I can’t have children.”

  “What?” He looked her in the eye, clearly surprised by her words.

  “I was dating a man for the last two years. He had asked me to marry him. When I started having pain, he was supportive, up until we discovered the cause.” She released a quavering breath. “The day I got the doctor’s diagnosis, he packed up and left Tallahassee. He said a clean break was best and that he’d been considering a job over in Alabama for a while anyway, so now was a good time to call it quits. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  Theo tightened his embrace. “You’re better off.”

  “Probably,” Whitney agreed. “But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

  * * *

  Theo was shocked at Whitney’s former fiancé’s behavior. What kind of man would bail on her for a medical condition she had no control over? It was appalling. Having a child had been amazing. He had loved his daughter with every fiber of his being. Yet, if his wife had been unable to conceive, they would still have
been happy together. He’d never really understood some people’s attitudes toward adoption, but there were definitely a few that believed they couldn’t love a child unless it was blood-related and resembled them in some shape or fashion. Still, who was he to judge? He had his own host of problems. The bottom line here was Whitney and her feelings of self-worth that had obviously been trampled on by her heartless fiancé.

  “Whitney, I do know some people think that way, but certainly not all of us subscribe to that belief. Whether or not you get healed from these tumors, you can still find love and have a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with a husband. You know that verse in Psalms, right? ‘Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’ Your desires might change a bit, but God is a big God. Nothing can stop an unstoppable God like ours.” He smiled. “Hey, isn’t that a song by Sanctus Real?”

  “You really think so?” she asked, still fighting to keep the tears at bay.

  “I know so,” he said firmly. “God has a plan for you. It may not look like what you expected, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderful.”

  She sniffed. “Do you believe the same thing for yourself?”

  Ah, there was the problem. He did believe everything he had just told Whitney. God could do anything, including heal her tumors, or help her find a meaningful life down another path. Maybe He would choose to make her a mother through adoption. Or perhaps she could find satisfaction another way. There were dozens of possibilities available to her. And there were plenty of men in the world who would be eager to be by her side while she went down any of those roads. Nothing was too hard for God.

  Whitney was an amazing woman. Not only was she beautiful on the outside, she was also beautiful on the inside. Now that her loser fiancé was out of the picture, Theo was sure someone would come along and be delighted to share Whitney’s life with her.

  His case, however, was much less certain. Whitney had done nothing to cause her medical condition. She was completely innocent.

  He was not.

  “I don’t know,” he hedged. “My situation is very different.”

  “Different how?”

  He sighed. This part of his story he hadn’t shared with any other person on the planet. Yet with everything he’d been through during the last couple of days, he actually felt safe sharing it with Whitney.

  “I told you I was on duty when my wife and daughter were brought into the emergency room. Usually doctors aren’t allowed to work on family, but I had no choice because we had so many accident victims show up at the same time. That’s not supposed to happen either, but it was a perfect storm and nobody else was available. Anyway, I hesitated when I saw them. I didn’t move fast enough. If I had just done a better job, they might have survived...”

  Whitney turned and looked him in the eye. The sad, disheartened woman who had stood before him just moments before had suddenly transformed into a forceful, defensive warrior. What really gave him pause, however, was that she was ready to defend him. “Says who? Was there an inquiry after the accident?”

  Theo shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”

  “Well, did another doctor say or do something to make you think you made a mistake or should have acted differently?” Her voice had an edge.

  He shook his head again. “No.”

  Whitney put her hands on her hips. “So you’re telling me that if you had met them at the emergency room door when they were being unloaded from the ambulance, there would have been a different outcome?”

  Theo said nothing and she pressed on. “Or if a different doctor had helped them, they would have survived?”

  He still didn’t answer her, but looked away, unable to meet her eyes. She wouldn’t let him off the hook though, and moved so he had no choice but to lock eyes with her again.

  “Then tell me exactly what you would have done differently that would have changed things.”

  Theo took a step back. He didn’t want to talk about this, after all. He had analyzed and torn apart that day and every one of his actions over and over again in his mind. It was like pulling the scab off a bloody wound that just wouldn’t heal. “I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “I see that, but something tells me you need to talk about this.” Whitney took a step forward. “Would a different procedure have changed the outcome?”

  “No.”

  “A different medicine?”

  “No.”

  Her voice softened. “Then I don’t understand.”

  “There was nothing definitive. I just know if I were a better doctor, they wouldn’t have died.”

  Whitney was silent for several moments and just stood there, looking at him. He didn’t see pity in her eyes, or condemnation. He wasn’t sure what it was. When she finally did speak, he found that he was anxious to hear her opinion, despite his reticence in even discussing the subject.

  “Bad things happen to good people, Theo. The Bible doesn’t say that if you’re a Christian, your life will be carefree. You went through a tragedy, a horrible one, but God hasn’t left you. And, He still has a plan for you, just like you say He has for me.”

  She reached over and squeezed his hand. “You need to forgive yourself. Sometimes, people die and there just isn’t anything you or anyone else can do to stop it. You weren’t to blame for their deaths. I wasn’t there, but from what I know of you, I am absolutely positive that you did everything imaginable you could to save them.”

  Theo drew his lips into a thin line. Her kindness was his undoing, and he felt tears in his eyes. “It’s easier to blame myself than to believe that.”

  “I’m sure it is. But sometimes life just isn’t fair. Things happen that are out of our control. And yet, God is still with us, during the good times and during the bad. Maybe both of us just really need to remember that.”

  He wiped the tears from his eyes. “It’s just so hard.”

  “Yes. I know.” She took a step closer. “Believe me, I know.”

  Theo pulled her into his embrace and just held her, letting her warmth and softness seep into his heart and ease his hurt and pain.

  Whitney was the first person he had let break through his defenses since his wife and daughter’s death, yet he wasn’t sorry he had shared his doubts with her. It was as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders. She was strong yet vulnerable herself, and the mix was just the balm he needed to soothe his soul and put the broken pieces of his heart back together, one piece at a time. Perhaps his self-imposed isolation was not the answer. Maybe, just maybe, God had brought Whitney into his life for a reason.

  FOURTEEN

  Whitney shone the flashlight into the wilderness surrounding the ranger station. It had been almost two days since they had arrived by gunpoint with the drug dealers, and the storm had been fiercely raging the entire time, crushing everything in its path. Finally, the winds and rain had started to settle, and she had felt so cooped up inside the small building that she had taken to doing surveillance every few hours and making a couple of tours around the building, just to make sure they were safe and there were no criminals lurking in the mangroves.

  She moved away from the building and headed slowly toward the water, making sure no boats were sneaking up on them or stored by the dock where they had landed. Swinging the flashlight around, she looked for any sign of movement beyond the wind that still blew lightly against her skin.

  Fortunately, she found nothing.

  She glanced up. It was around 3:00 a.m.—more or less. There would be no stargazing tonight. The sky was dark and the stars and moon were covered with clouds, making everything pitch-black around her. It wasn’t raining now, but the air still felt heavy and thick. She could also smell the sea air, which was a mixture of salt and vegetation that made her nose tingle.

  Then, suddenly, she heard a crackling noise and quickly pointed the
flashlight toward the water in the direction of the sound. Several sets of glowing red eyes shone back at her. Her heart beat frantically against her chest. She took a step back, then another, slowly heading toward the building. The alligators were all in the water, but they were still way too close for her comfort. Knowing they were out there made her skin crawl, and the red reflective eyes looked eerie and creepy in the darkness.

  “You okay?”

  Whitney jumped and swung around, ready to fight. “Good grief! You startled me!”

  Theo put his hands up as she pointed the flashlight in his direction. “Sorry about that.”

  Whitney relaxed her stance and aimed the flashlight away from him. “No worries. All those alligators just make me nervous. There sure are a lot of them out there.”

  “What about the crocodiles?”

  “What?” She hoped she kept the incredulous tone out of her voice, but it was really hard not to show her dismay. “I thought crocodiles were an Australian thing. Are you seriously saying we have those out there in that swamp, as well?”

  Theo shrugged, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Yep, there aren’t as many, but we have some. You can tell them apart by looking at their mouths. When an alligator has its mouth shut, you won’t see any of its teeth. But when a crocodile has its mouth shut, its bottom teeth stick up over the top lip, showing off a toothy grin.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” It was time to change the subject, and fast. She did not want to keep dwelling on the dangerous reptiles that were just a few yards away. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit hungry.”

  Theo nodded. “That soup was gone on the first day, as well as everything we brought with us, and I’m getting a bit tired of fish.”

  Whitney smiled. “At least David knew how to catch fish, even in the storm. Without him, we would have all gotten really hungry.” She motioned at the building. “Everybody okay inside?”